“Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,”
Matthew 2:17 — Greek Interlinear
Church Fathers on Matthew 2:17
The Evangelist by this history of so bloody a massacre, having filled the reader with horror, now again sooths his feelings, shewing that these things were not done because God could not hinder, or knew not of them; but as the Prophet had foretold.
This passage of Jeremiah has been quoted by Matthew neither according to the Hebrew nor the LXX version. This shews that the Evangelists and Apostles did not follow any one’s translation, but according to the Hebrew manner expressed in their own words what they had read in Hebrew.
Or, it was heard on high, because uttered for the death of the innocent, according to that, 'The voice of the poor entereth into the heavens.' The 'weeping' means the cries of the children; 'lamentation,' refers to the mothers. In the infants themselves their death ends their cries, in the mothers it is continually renewed by the remembrance of their loss.